[TUHS] Unix Circuit Design System
Larry McVoy
lm at mcvoy.com
Fri Jan 1 09:28:59 AEST 2016
Any chance this was code that turned into the Ousterhout stuff, I think it
was called spice?
On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 07:20:40PM +0100, Michele Ghisolfo wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> While I was reading the article "A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts
> from the Programmer's Manual" from Douglas McIlroy, I learnt of a set of
> utilities for designing electronic circuits. Here is a brief quote of this
> article:
>
> "CDL (v7 pages 60-63)
>
> Although most users do not encounter the UNIX Circuit Design System, it has long
> stood as an important application in the lab. Originated by Sandy Fraser and
> extended by Steve Bourne, Joe Condon, and Andrew Hume, UCDS handles circuits
> expressed in a common design language, cdl. It includes programs to create
> descriptions using interactive graphics, to lay out boards automatically, to
> check circuits for consistency, to guide wire-wrap machines, to specify
> combinational circuits and optimize them for programmed logic arrays (Chesson
> and Thompson). Without UCDS, significant inventions like Datakit, the 5620 Blit
> terminal, or the Belle chess machine would never have been built. UCDS appeared
> in only one manual, v7."
>
>
> I looked it up on the 7th Edition's Manual and I haven't found references of
> this system. I also searched a v7 system image downloaded from TUHS and got no
> results. However I got some references of this system in USENET archives. In
> particular, two hierarchies, net.draw and after net.ucds were dedicated to it.
> Apparently two of the binaries of the system were called "draw" and "wrap". I
> also found a manual of a similar system which I suppose is the UCDS descendant
> in the 1st Edition of Plan 9. This is the link of the document:
>
> http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/1st_edition/cda/
>
> However that edition of Plan 9 is not publicly released and I could not find
> it in following editions. But since v7 Unix is available, I hope it may
> be possible to get hold of an older release at least.
>
> Does anyone have any information?
>
> Thank you in advance!
>
> --- Michele
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
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